Czech Republic Part I - Prague

Well, I just finished spending about 5 days in Czech Republic, and I must say that it’s probably my new favorite country so far. I split my time between Prague, the capital, and a quieter village to the south called Cesky Krumlov. The two were basically exact opposites in terms of size and population, but they both were absolutely gorgeous and I had a great time in each.

After leaving Krakow, Poland (on the night train), I arrived the next day completely exhausted. For the first few hours, the night train was amazing, as I had the entire compartment to myself. But as the night went on, I got tired and wanted to go to sleep, but couldn’t sleep on the loud train. To make things worse, more and more people kept getting on, so by the end of the trip we had 7 people in my compartment, so none of us could lay down. Needless to say, I was beat.

Once I got to Old Prague Hostel, my accommodation for my time there, they told me that I wouldn’t be able to check in until 2pm. Not good. They had free breakfast in the kitchen, though, so I decided to go there and wait out the next few hours.

After getting some food in my stomach, I was feeling a bit less tired and decided I would map out all the sites I wanted to visit in Prague. Well, while I was doing research online, I somehow caught some second wind of energy and decided I would go out and take advantage of the day. So out I went, map in hand, to see what I could find.

As I mentioned earlier, Prague is absolutely gorgeous. It was probably the prettiest city I’d been to at that point. Some other cities such as Vienna or Amsterdam have small areas that can rival Prague’s beauty, but Prague’s entire old town was that way. You could walk around for an hour and each street you encountered would be prettier than the last.

The first stop I hit was close to my hostel – the Powder Tower, which dates from 1475. An expert at ascending steep spiral staircases at that point, I made the trek to the top. Stepping out onto the top of Powder Tower shows you just how cool Prague is. Looking towards Prague Castle and the Tyn Church, it looks like something out of a fairy tale, with their spires and towers eclipsing the rest of the town. After hanging out there for a while and savoring the views, I continued on my way.

The next stop was Old Town Square, which is the location of the Tyn Church that you saw in my pictures from the tower. Also in the square is the 600-year-old astronomical clock, which dates all the way from 1410. I happened to be walking by at the hour, so I stuck around for a few minutes to see the “Walk of the Apostles,” a rather uninteresting display of different wooden figures walking by the window of the clock. Some people loved it, though, as there was a crowd of about 500 people there to see it. I call those people “bad tourists,” because they’re always standing in the middle of the street, blocking other people from walking, and snapping pictures of really lame stuff on their obnoxiously oversized camera. Then they would typically go to a highly-overpriced tourist restaurant to eat dinner with 100 other bad tourists from the same country as them.

Leaving the square, I headed to Charles Bridge, the famous historical bridge over the Vltava River, which was started in 1357 and is now protected by UNESCO. On the way to bridge, I snapped about a million pictures of the city and the landscape, as it was all so picturesque. This bridge joins Prague Castle with the rest of the town. Before crossing it, I paid 30 crowns ($2) to go to the top of the south bridge tower, as I knew its views were unparalleled. I got some amazing pictures at the top of the bridge, the castle, and the old town.

Going across Charles Bridge at midday means that there are throngs of tourists doing the same. You can barely walk because there are so many people. To make thing worse, there are sketch artists along the sides, which people stop to watch, blocking up the entire bridge (more bad tourists). However, the views are indeed pretty amazing, so it’s understandable why they’re all there. I’d have to say that walking across the Charles Bridge (even though it is super-touristy) is one of the most amazing things you can do in Prague. The river, the castle, the bridge towers – they all come together to make one of the best panoramas I’ve ever seen.

On the other side, I began the steep trek to get a glimpse of Prague castle up close (it sits on a massive hill on the bank of the river). I was amazed that I hadn’t collapsed yet, as I hadn’t really slept at all yet. However, I did make it to the top, though I was pretty sweaty from the 85-degree weather. Once again, some of the best views that I’d encountered in all of Europe awaited me at the top.

Even though Prague Castle had closed for the day, its top attraction was still open, and free of charge – St. Vitus’ Cathedral. I went in with no line and walked through the whole thing. It was a good thing I went in then, because the following day, there would be a line about 200 people long waiting to go in. After walking through, I used my tripod to get some sweet shots in the square by the cathedral.

After the cathedral, I left the castle and walked even further up past the castle, away from the direction I’d came from. On that same side of the river, there is also a large forest area, with lots of trails that you can walk through. Since it’s on the same hill that the castle is built on, the entire thing overlooks the city of Prague. I walked around for a good hour or so before deciding to call it a day at about 8pm. On the way back to the hostel, I got these funny pictures of a puppy fighting with a stuffed animal (totally random, I know).

Anyway, for the rest of the night, I took it easy since I’d done so much that day. I hung out in the lounge of the hostel and met some people from Oklahoma and Texas that were pretty cool. We planned on doing a pub crawl together the following night.

Tuesday, June 24^th – On this day I decided to go back to the castle to go into its many exhibitions, which were closed the day before. I took the “short unguided tour,” which included the royal palace, the Basilica of St. George, and some tower. Everything was really cool, but every sign and description was only in Czech, so I couldn’t really understand anything. I wasn’t about to pay 200 extra korunas ($14) for an English audio tour though. The palace was my favorite part – it was huge and had lots of balconies that overlooked the city.

For the rest of the day, I went to the museum of Franz Kafka, whose writing is considered to be some of the most influential in western literature. Kafka was born and lived in Prague for most of his life, and wrote stories that dealt with the bureaucracy and impersonal nature of the modern world. He was a strange guy, and the museum is no different. The space was very interesting. For example, one exhibit had photographs and descriptions of Kafka’s life, but they were on plaques that had been placed in a shallow pool of water that went around the outside of the room. Another consisted of “mirage machine” – a room designed to make you think you are seeing something when you actually are not. Even though it was kind of weird, it was pretty interesting, and it was rather cheap for a student ticket.

Back at the hostel, I met up with the people I’d met the day before, who I’d planned on going on the pub crawl with. After some deliberation, we decided that the pub crawl wasn’t worth it, so we would just go out to a bar for some drinks. But first, we watched an entire season of the Ali G Show on the hostel’s TV. I’d bought some beers at a grocery store earlier that day, so I had those while we watched. I’d heard legendary things about Czech beer, and for the most part it was true. They were all really good, and all less than two dollars for a half liter can. My favorite was probably Budweiser Budvar, but it has nothing to do with its mass-produced American counterpart. The two companies have been fighting in international court battles for decades, as to who should get the rights to the name. Well, a unanimous decision was never reached, so every country has different regulations towards Budweiser beer. In Czech, obviously, it is just about 100% impossible to get an American Budweiser. In some countries, they have both, or sometimes will have one under a different name. Either way, the Czech Budweiser was better than ours, hands-down.

After pregaming, a group of us headed out to a little café right by our hostel – the Café Bambus. The group consisted of: Jimmy and Patrick from Oklahoma, guy from Texas and his girlfriend (I talked to them the whole night but can’t remember their names), guy from Eugene, Oregon (should also his name but don’t), and the Frenchies (two girls from the south of France), and myself.

Luckily, the bar we went to had really cheap prices on beer, which was nice. Pilsner Urquell is also from Czech Republic (though you can get it everywhere in the States), so we had a few of those at $2 a pop.

Afterwards, we decided to find a bar or a club to go to. Oddly enough, Prague was very quiet at night, and we had a lot of trouble finding a place that was open. I was considering just calling it a night, but we finally found a place that was open.

It was a seedy place, with a thick cloud of smoke enveloping you as you walked in the front door. It was two levels, and the basement (felt felt more like a dungeon) was where everyone was. When I first walked in, I found it odd that surrounding the entire room were a group of black guys (maybe 25 or 30) who all seemed to know each other, but yet none of them were dancing or at the bar. They would just stand there with a drink in their hand, talking to someone occasionally, but always on the outskirts of the room. It didn’t take long to realize that they were all pushing drugs. On the way in and out of the bathroom, you always get a “Hey man, you good?” from one of them, trying to peddle their wares. On the dance floor, a number of girls had lollipops in their mouths, which is a tell-tale sign that they were on ecstacy at the time. Apparently, the guys were selling everything from ecstacy to cocaine, right in the club. That was pretty sketchy, and it was impossible to breathe in the smoke-filled lair, as it had no windows. Thus, we decided to go home after only a half hour or so. I had to check out of the hostel by 10 the next morning anyway, so it was about time to call it a night anyway. The people I went out with were really cool though. Unfortunately, I forgot to get their contact information before I left, but it was fun hanging out with them that night.